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Obituary: Dr Wolfgang Haider
Dr. Wolfgang Haider, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of JORT, died on August 24, 2015, at the age of 62
following a bicycle accident in Austria.
Wolfgang was born in Eisenstadt, Austria, in 1953. His education in Europe and Canada—he had a M.Sc. degree
in geography and history from the University of Vienna, a M.A. degree in geography from Carleton University
and a Ph.D. in geography from McGill University (supervised by Dr. Gordon Ewing)—laid the foundation for his
international career and wide-ranging achievements.
Wolfgang`s main research interest was the application of social science in resource management to facilitate
the integration of societal needs in sustainable development. Adapting recent developments from marketing
and transportation research and bringing stated-preference choice modelling to the world of tourism and
outdoor recreation research, his innovative Ph.D. research represented a milestone for improving the
understanding of the inherent trade-offs underlying natural resource management questions. Through dozens
of projects including many national and international collaborations, he helped to redefine and apply the
choice-modelling approach to a wide array of resource management topics. He was not only an innovator, but
over the years, he became a highly respected leader in the field of trade-off based decision modelling.
Examples of these models were also published in JORT.
Wolfgang’s scientific curiosity, his diverse research interests and strong interpersonal and project management
skills are exemplified by nearly 100 peer reviewed publications, which he co-authored with over 90
collaborators. Over the coming months, many more articles will be published, further emphasizing his broad
research involvements. Equally impressive is the diversity of his body of research, which includes outdoor
recreation, nature-based tourism, transportation, health and safety, risk management, water resources,
forestry, endangered species, climate change, recreational fisheries and human-wildlife conflicts. Wolfgang’s
gift was to support experts in these fields with his exceptional skills in conceptualizing and framing research
questions and his expertise on research design, methods, implementation and analysis. His extensive networks
in the European and the North American research and resource management communities also made him a
highly valued contributor and organizer of international conferences, including the International Conference on
Monitoring and Management of Visitors in Recreational and Protected Areas (MMV), the International
Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) in Vancouver in 2006 and Vienna in 2009, among
many others.
Moreover, Wolfgang was known to be strongly devoted to his students, making himself available to them at all
times, including evenings and weekends. He introduced his students to academic writing, which helped them
to publish their work and make it available to the wider scientific community. His unwavering support during
their studies enabled them to succeed both in academia and resource management across North America and
Europe.
Drawing from his extensive publishing experience, Wolfgang became aware that despite the increasing societal
relevance of recreation and nature-based tourism, this research field was lacking a home in the publishing
world. While outdoor recreation studies were published in peer-reviewed journals in forestry, geography,
landscape planning, biology and conservation, sociology, psychology, sport science, tourism, and economics,
these studies were often at the peripheries of these fields and, as a whole, lacked the exposure they deserved.
With JORT, Wolfgang tried to refocus outdoor recreation research publications by providing a home that
fosters exchange among researchers worldwide. Furthermore, his international background motivated him to
make JORT an inclusive journal and to help authors whose first language is not English to express their ideas
and share them internationally. He invested more time in this challenging task than most editors. Excellent
examples of Wolfgang’s achievements in this area are the interdisciplinary and international special issues on
ecosystem services, health and well-being (2015), outdoor recreation and climate change (2015) and risk in
outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism, which is currently in preparation for publication in 2016.
It is our hope that this journal will continue as a lasting legacy of Wolfgang’s pioneering work in outdoor
recreation studies.
To further commemorate Wolfgang’s dedication to his students and his lasting contributions to the field of
natural resource management, his children, Jamila and Emanuel, and his colleagues at REM have established
the Wolfgang Haider Fellowship Trust to provide scholarship support to students in the School of Resource
and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University. For more information on donating to this trust,
please visit http://www.rem.sfu.ca/HaiderFellowship.
Ulrike Pröbstl-Haider,
Len Hunt,
Pascal Haegeli,
Ben Breadmore, and
Robert Arlinghaus
on behalf of the whole editorial board, colleagues and friends.